Jacqui Coombe
When it comes to handling the messy divorces of Britain’s elite, few lawyers command as much respect and fear as Fiona Shackleton, carrying the equally lustrous title now as Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia.
We wrote about the so-called ‘steel magnolia’ right back in 2013, at the time she had received her new title as Baroness Shackleton (she was made a life peer in 2010).
The 67-year-old divorce supremo has earned a reputation as a “demon negotiator” and “immensely quick-thinking” legal mind, according to the Legal 500.
Now, she is once again in the news as a highly-priced, high profile divorce expert representing Earl Spencer who has reportedly enlisted the services of the Baroness as he navigates the end of his third marriage to Canadian philanthropist Karen, Countess Spencer (both pictured).
The couple’s 13-year union officially came to an end in March, with the Earl confirming the split to The Mail on Sunday, stating, “It is immensely sad. I just want to devote myself to all my children, and to my grandchildren, and I wish Karen every happiness in the future.”
Shackleton’s involvement in the high-profile divorce is unsurprising, given her track record of representing the nation’s most prominent figures in their marital splits.
She famously acted for King Charles III, then the Prince of Wales, during his divorce from Earl Spencer’s sister, Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1996.
Other high-profile clients of Shackleton’s include the Duke of York and Sir Paul McCartney, whose former wife, Heather Mills, once tipped a jug of water over the lawyer’s head in court – an incident that did little to diminish Shackleton’s unflappable demeanor.
Mills had sought sought £125 million and won £24 million in Court.
Other clients included Stephen Hawking, Liam Gallagher and Princess Haya bint Hussein of Jordan and Sacha Baron Cohen.
But the celebrity clients seem endless. The Times noted: “She was Team Madonna in her divorce from Guy Ritchie, and acted for Liam Gallagher when his marriage to Nicole Appleton imploded with the news that an American journalist was pregnant with his child.”
The Brain of the Baroness
She once told the Financial Times that she was “hopeless” at exams due to her brain being different from other people.
Her biography on her legal firm, Payne Hicks Beach, a law firm focused on private client and family work, website modestly calls her clients “significant”, noting that ‘Chambers legal directory has described her as “a master strategist” and that “she has great skill in putting clients at ease, and she is very good at seeing the big picture.”
Spears magazine described her as “Britain’s most feared and revered divorce lawyer”.
She had previously worked for the legendary Farrers, the firm that acted for the Queen, which she described as being a hotbed of sexism and anti-semitism. (She is Jewish).
‘Women were bullied and, being a Jew, I was bullied,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘To be told, ‘We only got this client because we don’t employ a Jew in conveyancing, or ‘You’re not going to get equity because [you feel] it’s better to have two children’ ‘
‘I was bringing in much more work than anyone but I would leave at 5.30pm to put my daughters to bed. They terrorised me into thinking I wasn’t very good.’
As the Spencer divorce proceedings unfold there will be further focus upon the ‘Steel Magnolia’s’ work to obtain a satisfactory outcome for yet another profile client.
Charging a reported £550 per hour she is clearly not inexpensive, but the results and her legal acumen speak volumes – as do her celebrity clients happy to pay for the results she achieves.
